"Why It's Wrong To Call Copyright Infringement 'Theft'"

[It seems to be a day for wondering about the legal profession, so let's

take a look at  another attempt to justify providing copies of IP
without licence. This time a professor, no less, garbles definitions on
his intellectual journey. What made me really wonder about him was the
statement that included "widely held moral intuitions". Now to me there
is a very small set of basic morals, pretty much listed inthe Ten
Commandments and the Noachic Code, and all the rest of 'morality' is
interpretations for the time or era. But 'moral intuition' is new to me.

But perhaps it does sum up his arguments which attempt to offer a
response to logic with some pretty 'intuitive intellectualising'. One
thing he deliberately confuses is the difference between civil breach,
and criminal theft; the latter term can be applied only to acts
forbidden by criminal law. Theft in moral terms is simpler; it is the
act of taking what does not belong to you, irrespective of whether it is
a sock, a written composition, a job or a digital file. Each is stolen
in a different way or ways. There is no act of theft in civil law,
though claims for restitution or breach do imply an act has taken place.

But when I see a professor contributing to a very complex and important
issue in the modern world writing of 'zero-sum' games, I know I'm better
off reading Alice Through the Looking Glass.]

Why It's Wrong To Call Copyright Infringement 'Theft'
----------------------------------------------------------------------
When Stealing Isn't Stealing
http://www.booktrade.info/i.php/35953-39852








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